While I appreciate filmmaking as an art form, I’m usually way too busy reading books to check out a DVD. When I do pick one, it’s probably going to be either a documentary, or something based on a true story. This is primarily because such films make me want to learn more about the people involved, [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘film’
February 17, 2009
Upset at the Oscars? This Film Could Do It!
The Oscars are just around the corner and most of the nominees have already been reviewed, analyzed, examined and pored over in every conceivable way. But be on the lookout for one new upstart, just released last week, that could steal the show in the Short Film Category.
A recently released “biopic” of the Music Department [...]
January 14, 2009
Hiroshi Teshigahara: Master Japanese Filmmaker
A few weeks back, my partner was heading out of town for the weekend, which is when I hightail it for the foreign film section of the Film and Audio Department. It’s not like my mate won’t watch anything with subtitles; it’s just her amusing propensity for falling asleep that keeps me from bringing home [...]
November 18, 2008
Excalibur: the English movie with a German soundtrack
In John Boorman’s 1981 film, Excalibur, Merlin says to Morgana:
It’s a lonely way, you know, the way of the Necromancer. Yes, to know too much…lacrimae mundae…the tears of the world.
Yes, sometimes too much knowledge can be a bad thing. While watching Excalibur for the first time since being a teenager, I now know [...]
August 20, 2008
Sing along with Jerry Orbach!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that, no matter when you’re flipping through your cable channels, you’re probably going to see the late, great Jerry Orbach starring as Detective Lenny Briscoe in the long-running TV series Law and Order. But did you know that Lenny could sing?
It’s true! Before he was a lovably cranky television [...]
August 8, 2008
The Coney Island Mind of Lawrence Ferlinghetti
2008 is the 50th anniversary of a book of poems that has become so revered that it is something of a rite of passage, handed down from generation to generation: A Coney Island of the Mind. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, is himself a cherished institution. He is the rarest of rare breeds: a [...]
July 14, 2008
Happy Bastille Day!
Today in France everyone will be celebrating Bastille Day (or le quatorze julliet, as they would say there), which commemorates the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and is often considered to be the beginning of modern France. As a francophile and French literature major, I always try to celebrate Bastille Day myself (even if that [...]
July 9, 2008
What the Hell … Dante’s Inferno for the 21st Century
Seemingly since time immemorial, high school students have regularly been banished to the Hell that is Dante’s Inferno. Recently, courtesy of my favorite readers’ blog, Blog of a Bookslut, I discovered that there is a new paper puppet adaptation of Dante’s Inferno coming out this month on DVD. Here’s a tasty preview:
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March 12, 2008
Old maids, time travel, and Casanova
While many jobs evoke certain stereotypes (used car salesman, anyone?), few seem as culturally strong as the image of the old maid librarian with her hair in a bun. Think Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life when Jimmy Stewart is seeing what life would be like without him. Instead of the charming wife he knew [...]
